cs.LGJun 8, 2026

SHAPO: Sharpness-Aware Policy Optimization for Safe Exploration

Authors: Kaustubh ManiYann PequignotVincent MaiLiam Paull

Organizations: Universit´e de Montr´eal · Mila - Qu´ebec AI Institute · Universit´e Laval · LawZero · CIFAR AI Chair

Abstract

Safe exploration is a prerequisite for deploying reinforcement learning (RL) agents in safety-critical domains. In this paper, we approach safe exploration through the lens of epistemic uncertainty, where the actor's sensitivity to parameter perturbations serves as a practical proxy for regions of high uncertainty. We propose Sharpness-Aware Policy Optimization (SHAPO), a sharpness-aware policy update rule that evaluates gradients at perturbed parameters, making policy updates pessimistic with respect to the actor's epistemic uncertainty. Analytically we show that this adjustment implicitly reweighs policy gradients, amplifying the influence of rare unsafe actions while tempering contributions from already safe ones, thereby biasing learning toward conservative behavior in under-explored regions. Across several continuous-control tasks, our method consistently improves both safety and task performance over existing baselines, significantly expanding their Pareto frontiers.

Explore similar work

CardsList
  1. Sampling-Based Safe Reinforcement Learning

    May 19, 2026Luca Vignola, Bruce D. Lee, Manish Prajapat +4Safety ConstraintsEfficient Exploration